Ever had a page that no matter what you did with it, Google just didn’t seem to like it? An XML sitemap might be the way to go to turn that frown upside down.

XML sitemaps have been around for quite some time, but I never had any real need for their use until recently. An old page I was working on Google seemed to absolutely hate for some reason. I whittled away at all the possibilities and came up empty handed.

The “hate” was Google wasn’t updating the cached copy of the page regularly, even though it was being updated at least once a week. Some important content linked from that page and in turn, that was taking forever to appear in search engine results.

Sometimes it would be a couple of months between updates – it was very frustrating and totally perplexing; particularly given it was a page only one level down in the file base.

I was about to burn the page and start afresh (with no guarantee that it would work) when I thought I’d give an XML sitemap a go. XML sitemaps are very easy to generate and submit to Google.

Anyhow, within a week or so, the cache updated, then again a few days later, then yet again. Problem solved. Well, not solved as I never did figure out why Google was turning it’s nose up, but the page now has Google’s continued attention and I am 100% certain it was as the result of using an XML sitemap.

If you’re experiencing the same sort of problem, give sitemaps a whirl. Even if it’s not Google, but another major engine such as Yahoo or Bing ignoring a page, it may still help. Learn more about XML sitemaps